Characters

Due to his incredibly quick learning and perfectly developed temperament, Ender becomes the commander who destroys the buggers. He thus saves humanity. Ender is a "Third," the third child in a world where parents are normally limited to two due to overcrowding--but his parents were permitted a third due to the great promise of his older siblings. He is thus a combination of his older brother, who is vicious and ruthless, and his older sister, who is extremely compassionate. This combination gives Ender an identity crisis: he wants to win victories in order to win peace, but when he employs severe violence, he is unsure whether he has been motivated by necessity or a more violent part of his character. In order to prevent harassment or even his own death later on, Ender defends himself against his enemies Stilson and Bonzo Madrid to such a degree that he kills them both. At the same time, he is motivated by fairness and compassion, evidenced by his conversations with superiors and subordinates as well as by his feelings and actions after killing the buggers. He eventually saves the last bugger queen in order to restore the bugger species.